A more realistic CV-CAG model

[SeaMonkey]

Not trying to make a complicated change, just a tweak or two. SC obviously has the best feature for this simulation at this scale, but.....!

I find the losses suffered by ground forces attacked by carrier air groups to be excessive, especially early in the war, and that coupled with the double strike moves me outside the bounds of reality.

The primary mission of early CVs was raiding, directed mostly at naval vessels and port facilities, so the naval attack factor is fine, but I would like to see a diminish of supply as in a strategic attack and the subsequent loss of efficiency. As for land units a relative decrease in morale and readiness would be a better attack effect by CAGs. The losses can come later when the % possibility of a hit increases the way greater tech levels of strategic bombers work presently.

Now for the experience losses from aircraft replacements in decimated CAGs that are subsequently reinforced. The thing here is the pilots and yes I know there were increasing losses to the IJN competency level as their CAGs didn't receive adequately trained pilots as the war progressed. What I would like to see is the experience level of a CV/CAG unit only fall with the ship repair reinforcements and not the CAG associated with it. This way the CAG can acquire experience later on in the war and coupled with advanced naval tech actually have a better chance to cause more losses for ground strikes just as it happened with the improving doctrine.

Imagine that now once the experience level rise for the CV/CAG unit that the overstrengthening feature of SC of one per turn is a simulation of additional training for the CAGs and represents a player's conscious effort to improve his pilot pool.

I'm not exactly cozy with these thoughts, but something about this SC carrier aviation model bothers me and I'm just trying to air it out. Someone (Mike) give me some additional thoughts or rationalizations so I can be a bit more comfortable with this SC feature.:confused: Please!:eek:

[mcaryf1]

Hi SeaMonkey

The only thing you seem to be asking for that is not possible with the editor already is that CV experience is only deteriorated by one set of reinforcements rather than both. I do not think that is an unreasonable suggestion but I typically start my scenarios with CVs having pre-existing experience so that CV units can maintain experience levels if managed carefully. You can of course choose which aspect of a CV you reinforce first and sometimes it is possible to build up elite strength in the less damaged aspect before taking the experience hit. I tend to make elite reinforcements an equal price to normal ones for carriers to help players build back up again.

My own opinion is that air power should not be capable of doing so much damage that it can entirely destroy army and corps sized units. In my own scenarios I typically give CV's a base SA attack rating of zero and TA of 1, whilst my army and corps units have a BD/CD rating of 2 although the Chinese are typically weaker. My AA research increment is 2 and I have quite a few AA units so that it is not usually a good idea for CV's to attack land units too often as their main impact is de-entrenchment rather than strength loss.

I use some minor country CV units to simulate the type of US CVE TFs that were primarily focussed on ground support and they do get an SA of 1 but they are only available later in the war.

The question of strike numbers is a difficult one with CV's - they do need 2 strikes so they can escort themselves but despite this I do only give the British carriers a single strike as their escorts would have been fairly poor fighters anyway. I usually treat multiple strikes as being required when a unit is representing a substantial force that could reasonably attack more than once e.g. my army units usually have 2 strikes. Allied air forces ended the war with enormous numbers of planes so it is necessary to allow them multiple strikes as it is not physically possible to locate enough Allied fighter units in the squares available. In contrast Axis fighters only have one strike. I do however give both German and Allied land based fighters the ability to make 3 intercepts and as mentioned before I have plenty of powerful AA units so the skies are a hostile environment.

I am not sure that I understand your suggestion re supply - if, for example, the Japanese CVs are attacking Chinese land units they can often be doing this from a harbour location so supply will stay at 10. Quite wrong realistically speaking because most carrier aircraft would not launch from a static ship, however, one can assume that the CVs are near port and can return there after their strikes have been launched.

To summarise I think it is possible to use the editor to achieve a lot of what you want - you will then need to find someone to play your modified version with you. I am still refining my own scenarios and playing against the AI to do that.

Regards

Mike

[pzgndr]

Two thoughts. First, modding/adjusting the CTVs can already rebalance things to a large degree. Carrier-based air can be made less effective against land targets, and vice versa, and this is what I did in my A3R mod. Second, there needs to be another unit type slot so you can have two carriers, heavy/fleet carriers and light/escort carriers. That would help a lot; hopefully we'll see some changes along these lines in SC3.

[SeaMonkey]

I haven't looked into the editor in a long time, but the last time you couldn't set a secondary effect for carrier strategic attack value where the increasing naval tech would allow a greater % hit possibility on a land unit.

Are y'all sure about that, cause that is what I'm saying? As bomber tech increases, the likelihood of a hit on a resource occupying land unit goes up 10% per level(secondary effect).

As far as supply, what I was refering to is a training model based upon the ability to overstrength a unit(CAG) one point per turn as long as the CV was in a 10 supply port. Since most training accomodations, target ranges, adequate runways, senior airmen, etc were usually a part of the homeland's port facilites, these would be the only places that would allow the overstrengthening.

[mcaryf1]

Hi SeaMonkey

You can use the editor to adjust both the initial hit % for a unit that is located on a resource hex and its rate of change with experience levels.

I now understand your proposal re increased experience when based in a high supply home port. It is somewhat akin to the training mode that Gary Grigsby's War in the Pacific has. If SC was to implement something like that I think it would be better as a specific mode like "raiding" rather than an automatic feature just from being in a home port. One of the difficulties with SC is that physical port space is somewhat limited, thus ship units have to cluster around a port rather than all being physically within it and port space is needed for upgrades and reinforcing. For its own purposes SC gets around port space limitations by leaving a ship's supply level at 10 even when it is not actually on a port hex.

If a training mode were implemented, then there should be a downside. For example the US suffered heavy casualties at a place called Slapton Sands in the UK when a training exercise for D Day was rudely interrupted by a flotilla of e-boats which attacked some of the ships and landing craft taking part. Thus you could make it so that any unit in training mode might have its defensive values reduced.

To be honest whilst a training mode might be fun for some players, there are probably other new facilities that I might want to see first. I think we have previously discussed a suggestion that any brand new unit should be treated as "green" with a negative experience rating and take say 3 or 4 turns to get up to "normal" experience. This would be automatic, so less work for a player, and would not apply to re-built units as these would be regarded as having a cadre of experienced survivors.

Regards

Mike

[SeaMonkey]

Interesting Mike, I hadn't realized the editor had gone to such lengths. I'm looking forward to playing your mod, let me know when you've fleshed it out to a balance testing degree.